Paco Rabanne Has Hired A New Artistic Director

Lydia Maurer has been appointed the new artistic director of women’s ready-to-wear at Paco Rabanne.

The 29-year-old German-born designer replaces Manish Arora, who left the company last month. Maurer worked for Martine Sitbon, Yves Saint Laurent, and Givenchy after graduating from the Studio Berçot design school in Paris. She joined Paco Rabanne as a studio design director in November.

Maurer explains in a press release:

“It is a great honor to be taking on the artistic direction of such an emblematic house at the heart of Parisian creation. Monsieur Rabanne created his clothing as a means of expressing the singularity of each woman. He invented a timeless, unique and sensual style inspired by art and architecture. This is the ongoing creative spirit that I wish to convey in my work for the House.”

Speaking of creative spirit, it sounds like Maurer already has some ideas for her spring 2012 collection, which will debut in Paris this fall. As per WWD:

“We started by thinking about wearability. Paco Rabanne has always had a hard time existing [outside of] its beautiful iconic dresses that were made out of metal or plastic, or other uncanny materials, so the main concern was really to start by rendering [looks] more feminine, fluid and warm. We don’t want to say no to performance artists like Lady Gaga [who wore pieces from Arora’s first collection for the house] because obviously that is part of [the Paco Rabanne] universe, but that is not the only reason we are here. Obviously, the Paco Rabanne woman likes to go out, she’s a woman of the world.…She is not necessarily going to come to Paco Rabanne to buy clothes for wearing to the office, but we also want to appeal to women who don’t necessarily want to be living sculptures.”